Very heavy rain fell on Chiba, an area east of Tokyo in Japan, in August 2026. On September 10, the Meteorological Research Institute*1 explained why the rain stayed in one place for so long. The institute is part of the Japan Meteorological Agency, the government's weather office. It said these are its first results.
The rain came from a long line of storm clouds. Weather scientists call this kind of line a squall line*2. A squall line has very big thunderclouds*3 and brings very heavy rain. It usually moves fast, so the rain in one place does not last long. But this time, the line stopped near the Boso Peninsula, the part of Chiba that reaches out into the sea. It stayed there for many hours. The institute said this is rare.
Why did the line stop? A layer*4 of cold air was pushing the clouds to the east. At the same time, wind was blowing in from the Pacific Ocean toward the west. The two pushes were about equal, so the clouds moved much more slowly.
The rain was strongest in the north part of the line. There, the institute found that the air inside the thunderclouds began to spin. The spinning air made the air rise faster in that spot. Rising air helps raindrops form, so the rain became stronger. The institute thinks this was one reason for the very heavy rain.
*1 institute: a place where scientists study something
*2 squall line: a long line of storm clouds that moves together and brings heavy rain
*3 thunderclouds: very tall, dark clouds that bring thunder and heavy rain
*4 layer: a flat sheet of something lying over or under another thing
A passenger tried to bring goat meat into Japan. The meat had a dangerous virus in it. Japan's Animal Quarantine Service, a government office that checks animals and meat coming into the country, announced this on April 24, 2026.
The meat arrived on January 11, 2026. A passenger flew from Beijing, the capital of China, to New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, in the north of Japan. The passenger told the officers about the meat. It was goat meat with the feet still attached, and it weighed 8.23 kilograms. The officers checked the meat and did not allow it into Japan.
The Animal Quarantine Service then tested the meat. It found the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease*1. The virus was type O. It was still alive and could still infect*2 animals.
The office tests meat that people try to bring into Japan. So far, it has found genes*3 of this virus in three samples*4. Two came from passengers' bags, and one came from international mail. But this goat meat is the first sample with a live virus in it.
*1 foot-and-mouth disease: a sickness that spreads fast among cows, pigs, goats and sheep
*2 infect: to give a sickness to a person or an animal
*3 genes: very small parts inside a living thing; scientists can find them in a test to show the virus was there
*4 samples: small pieces of something that are taken for a test
Scientists in Japan have found a new way to make a very bright white. They do not use any paint or pigment*1. The team announced the news on September 10, 2026. Their study was published in Nature, a science magazine in Britain.
The team is led by Professor Easan Sivaniah and Qin Detao of iCeMS, a research center at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan. Daiki Yanagishima of Tokyo Metropolitan University also worked on the study. Tokyo is the capital of Japan.
Today, most white things get their color from titanium dioxide*2. It is a white powder. But some scientists worry that it may harm genes*3. In 2022, the European Union stopped its use in food.
The new method is called DeepFoam Photolithography, or DFP. The scientists start with a common plastic. They shine ultraviolet light*4 on it. Then they put it in a liquid called a solvent*5. This makes many tiny bubbles inside the plastic, like a foam*6. When light goes into the foam, it bounces many times in all directions. Light of every color bounces, so the plastic looks white. The white is as good as the white from titanium dioxide.
The idea came from a beetle. Cyphochilus*7 beetles live in Southeast Asia. Their shells are very white, but the white layer is only 5 to 10 micrometers*8 thick. The scientists copied this trick.
The method works with many kinds of plastic. These include polystyrene*9, polycarbonate*10, polysulfone*11, cellulose acetate*12, PMMA*13 and PET*14. It can print very fine pictures at 20,000 dots per inch*15. The foam also pushes water away very strongly. The scientists hope it can be used in place of PFAS*16.
The research was supported by JSPS, a Japanese group that pays for science, and by the Kyoto University and Mitsubishi Corporation Startup Catapult program.
*1 pigment: a colored powder that is mixed into paint, food or other things to give them color
*2 titanium dioxide: a white powder used to make paint, food and other things look white
*3 genes: the tiny parts inside our body cells that carry information about how we grow
*4 ultraviolet light: a kind of light that our eyes cannot see; it comes from the sun
*5 solvent: a liquid that can soften or melt other things
*6 foam: a lot of very small bubbles together, like the bubbles in soap
